TJ Klune is a good story teller. By that I mean he loves to tell all, rather than letting the reader experience and discover things. Thankfully, The House in the Cerulean Sea has less of it compared to Under the Whispering Door, but there is still a surfeit of telling that it takes away from the overall joy of reading this fantasy fiction with a fairy tale ending.

The House in the Cerulean Sea is all about acceptance, something that is dangerously close to disappearing from a world that is becoming more and more polarized. Perhaps, this book can be made a mandatory reading material to all conservative political parties around the world.

A 3.5-star effort, that is difficult for me to round up to a 4.